


It Happens

by FunHatingKobold



Category: Original Work
Genre: Animal Death, Creature Death, Established Relationship, F/F, Gen, Relationship Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 20:50:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20918423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunHatingKobold/pseuds/FunHatingKobold
Summary: Sometimes they just can't be as excited about the things you love as you are.





	It Happens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ilthit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/gifts).

> This is the result of a "Well, why don't YOU write it then" conversation. I usually don't, but this time the idea popped up just as I was saying "Nah, I'm not gonna".  
Also I suck at coming up with titles.
> 
> Originally posted on Pillowfort.

"Cas, you can't keep bringing these things here! I mean it!"

I know she means it. And it hurts.

There was a time when I believed that she'd come around, if only she could have the opportunity to get to know them as I do. It was with that hope that I brought them to her - well, that and the fact that I had noone else to go to. I can't understand what she has against them. Sure, they aren't the prettiest thing to look at, but she's not squeamish, far from it. And anyway, aren't vets supposed to care for all animals? Not just the cute, fluffy ones?

Maybe it's the fact that we've never managed to detach one without losing the host.

"What do you expect me to do? How am I supposed to treat it, I don't even know what it is!"

"You know enough to see she's hurting," I insist. She makes a face.

"How do you even know it's a 'she'?"

"I just do, okay? Lydia, please..." I put my arms forward so she can look into my grimy tupperware container, bits of Russian salad drying on the walls. When I saw the state my foundling was in I had scooped her up and put her into the first thing I could grasp. Lydia recoils and looks away. I'd been feeling like crying all the way to the clinic, but it's now that I finally give in to it.

\---

Cas is crying and I'm this close to throwing her out. I won't. I never do. But she's a manipulative bitch, and I can't stand the way she's using me, guilt-tripping me into helping her every time. I cried too, when she told me that she had finally found the nest. How amazing, she said, maybe we would finally discover how they'd gotten here, we had to check it out! I cried and I begged her not to go, reminded her of all the dogs and sheep and even the fucking cow those things would latch on to, and yet she went and did what she wanted, as always. 

I don't know what she sees in them - it's not the passion of discovery. She insists she's "studying" them, that she'll reveal everything she has once she's figured them out. That's bullshit. She should tell someone, hand over her "discovery" to someone who actually knows what they are doing. An exterminator, ideally. And she should stop coming into my bed smelling of old basements and dead flies.

I give in - as always, and I look into her lunch box. She doesn't seem to have even washed it before putting the disgusting thing in. I feel sick at the thought of her ever eating from it again, I would need to get to it and throw it away before she does.

"It's moulting," I say, trying to sound as cold as I feel, to let her know she's not won. Even though she has. "It looks like it's stuck. The exposed parts have began hardening. How long has it been like this?" Good God, I'm thinking, this thing is going to get bigger.

Cas shrugs and sniffs and puts the box on the table, the table where my clients put their pets on, their normal, animal, non-alien spider-parasite pets.

"Hours. She's been sluggish lately. I would have brought her earlier--" I can barely stifle my disgusted gasp, but she's not paying attention to me at all. "But then I figured she was gonna shed, like you said. I've been out all day..."

The tears come again with renewed force and I can barely understand what Cas is saying. Begging me, thanking me. Promising she'll do anything for me.

I wish she would shut up.

\---

"Cas I'm sorry."

I know she's not. Not for what happened. Lydia is sorry to see me like this, but she is relieved. I feel crushed and exhausted, I don't have the strength or will to pick a fight now. So I say nothing.

"It happens."

How would she know? She always insists she knows nothing.

"She was too weak. You said as much when you found her. Underdeveloped."

She. Her. She's only saying this to make me feel better, to humour me. This is not the sort of comfort I need.

And yet, when she pulls me close and holds me, I accept it.


End file.
